Houston was the The first lecture hall Beyoncé encountered in her studies of all things country. There, her teachers were Texans who build community through church, cuisine and cowboy culture. Even when her rising stardom took her away from her hometown, the musician's roots continued to run deep and the studio became her classroom. In 2016, she released 'Daddy Lessons', a self-reflective musical treatise about fitting in as a soldier ready to protect and defend both herself and her family – a craftsman with true Texas values. With cowboy carter, her first full-body dive into country music, Beyoncé steps to the front of the podium to deliver some lessons of her own.
The artist is both teacher and student throughout the album, informed both by her own experiences and the legacies of pioneers and neglected stars who came before her. It came in the wake of Beyoncé's performance at the 2016 CMA Awards, where she performed “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks. There, she was met with a response that positioned her as an outsider—someone who didn't belong in that scene because, for some, she was too pop and for others, she was just too black. “Because of this experience, I took a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive,” Beyoncé said in a statement when she revealed the Cowboy Carter art album.
Beyoncé's findings were multidimensional, stories of the genre spanning generations, as well as the culture that informed its image and legacy. The record's visual and audio presentations are meticulous and deliberate, and its message is clear to those willing to be serious enough to receive it. The nods are to the music as well as the language surrounding the album. It's in the featured guests, song titles and promotional marketing. He is intent on declaring, “This is not a country album. This is a Beyoncé album.”
Before Cowboy Carter received its official title as the second installment of a trilogy that began in 2022 Renaissanceintroduced as Act II with “Texas Hold 'Em” and the ballad “16 Carriages” as lead singles. The more upbeat, dance-ready song appeared in a teaser video, setting the tone for the visual direction of the season. In the 57-second video, Beyoncé drives through the desert in a yellow cab, passing a sign for Radio Texas that reads: “100,000 Watts of Healing Power,” the highest effective radiation power for an FM station in the US.
As she hits the gas in the clip, kicking up dust in her wake, a crowd gathers around a billboard that reads “Texas Hold'Em” in bold letters, against a dramatized image of her reclining in red underwear with a matching cowboy hat. The scene apparently referenced images from Wim Wenders' 1984 film Paris, Texas. The contemporary western finds two brothers unexpectedly bonding while on a road trip to Houston after years apart. When the Cowboy Carter The tracklist was revealed, the song “Spaghetti” interpreted as a possible nod to spaghetti westerns, the subgenre that frequents European filming locations such as Texas Hollywood/Fort Bravo in Spain.
This thematic thread of genre classifications and contrasting metaphors—whether in the cab of “Texas Hold'Em” or the freeways and byways that Beyoncé sings about in “16 Carriages”—is emphasized more extensively in the album's presentation. tracklist. “Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin' Circuit,” reads the title of the almost inexplicable listing. “Brought to you by KNTRY Radio Texas.” Each song title is presented in either red or blue cutouts with color blocks, some circles, some rectangles, and some pop art spikes. Among them are black and white images of Beyoncé that highlight the details of her pigtails, piano accordion and giant hoop earrings.
The poster formatting calls back to Chitlin circuit that entrepreneurs Sea and Denver D. Ferguson are credited with founding in the 1930s. Circuit venues provided black entertainers with venues to perform, especially during times when venues were segregated, and promoters often turned them away. The same comic-book approach fueled concerts like the Motortown Revue, which ran in the '60s and hosted Motown artists like Stevie Wonder, Martha and the Vandellas and Marvin Gaye. The circuit spanned dozens of cities, from Austin, Texas and Birmingham, Alabama to Detroit, Michigan and Harlem, New York, where the Cotton Club and Apollo Theater became cultural staples.
Another bubble in the Cowboy Carter The poster reads “The Linda Martell Show,” a salute to an often overlooked musician who paved the way for black women in country music. Martell released her first and only album Color Me Country in 1970, marking the first major release by a black woman in the genre. And the record's success led to her becoming the first solo black female country artist to play the Grand Ole Opry, the longest-running Nashville-based radio show in American history.
In an exclusive interview with Rolling rock Published in 2020, Martell detailed the struggles she faced during her fleeting career, which began to decline when her label at the time—Plantation Records, of all names—began prioritizing Jeannie C. Riley, a white country artist. of pop . He never had it easy. “A lot of times, you feel like you want to say, 'Okay, look here, I don't want to hear this. Please stop calling me names like that,'' Martell said of her experience performing for predominantly white audiences, who often hurled abuse at her. “But you can't say that. You can't say anything. All you can do is sing and try to forget it.”
Martell had gotten some advice from Charley Pride, a pioneering country performer who made waves in the genre as a black musician. He had told her to toughen up – grow a thick skin and get used to being called by her name. It was applied to both members of the public and industry executives. Many expected Beyoncé to follow the same line of thinking in response to the fallout from her performance at the 2016 CMA Awards, but she owed it both to herself and to the country's Black community—those who came before her and those who have done the job consistently for years, from Mickey Guyton and Tanner Adell to Rhiannon Giddens and Brittney Spencer.
Pride was a frequent performer at the Houston Rodeo, which Beyoncé and her family attended every year throughout her childhood. He took the stage there 19 times between 1970 and 2002. Over the years, the annual event has also hosted country-oriented performances by Loretta Lynn, the Commodores and Willie Nelson, who is featured on the Cowboy Carter track “Smoke Hour.” and performed at the Rodeo the same year Beyoncé watched Selena and Frankie Beverly & Maze perform there. She has appeared there herself, twice with Destiny's Child and twice on her own.
Since Beyoncé participated in one of these solo shows on horseback, it shouldn't have been a surprise to see her echo Rodeo Queens culture on the album artwork for Cowboy Carter. In the image, he is perched on a white stallion, one that is actively moving forward with its front hooves raised. In one hand she holds her reins. In the other he holds an American flag. On her chest is a sheet that reads: “Cowboy Carter.” Rodeo Queens often wear title bags and cowboy hats sourced from pageants such as Miss Rodeo Texas.
Rodeo Queens helped shape the culture of these events alongside cowboys and cowgirls like the ones Beyoncé paid tribute to in 2021 with the Ivy Park Rodeo. The clothing collection was inspired by Black masters of the art, Beyoncé said Harper's Bazaar that year. “Many of them were originally called cows, who experienced great discrimination and were often forced to work with the worst, most temperamental horses,” he explained. “They took their talents and formed Soul Circuit. Over time, these black rodeos have featured incredible performers and helped reclaim our place in Western history and culture.”
Even “Levii's Jeans,” featuring Post Malone, appears to be a subtle nod to one of country music's fashion staples. In recent photos, Beyoncé paired her denim looks with cowboy hats and boots, and accessorized with huge belt buckles. In 1922, Levi Strauss & Co. added belt loops to their jeans for the first time and this fashion change reached the rodeo as well. Rodeo star Kenneth Cooper was caught wearing a belt in his 501 Levis in 1928, and according to the brandLevi Strauss & Co. began celebrating rodeo champions with championship belt buckles in the decades that followed.
“It's nice to see how music can unite so many people around the world while amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives to educating our musical history,” Beyoncé wrote in her statement. for Cowboy Carter. “The criticism I faced when I first got into this genre forced me to push past the limitations that were placed on me. Act II is a result of challenging myself and my time to bend and combine genres together to create this work… I hope you can hear my heart and soul and all the love and passion I gave in every detail and every sound.”
It's the little things that come together to form such a rich story. Everything came from somewhere — and then Cowboy Carterthe class is in session.
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